Homeless

It’s nearly impossible to say how many homeless people there are in New Hampshire. And the biggest reason is that most people without a home in this state aren’t on the street or in shelters—they actually have a roof over their heads.

Some sleep on couches, and some rent rooms by the week at a place like the P.K. Motel in Effingham.

Drive the highway between Manchester and Concord, and maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of the tarps and tents lining sections of the Merrimack River and the train tracks. When winter shelters close, homeless people find refuge outdoors, in public—but that’s an act that’s often against the law.

And with no unified policy to work with, New Hampshire’s city officials and homeless residents tend it to make it up as they go.

This past winter a car struck and killed a homeless man in Concord. His name was Gene Parker - he lived on the streets for five years and in that time his friends and advocates fought hard to get him into an apartment. But he died before that could happen.

Parker’s story is brutal, but it also says a lot about why it’s so hard to pull someone like him out of homelessness.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services is coordinating a one-day count to identify the number of homeless people in the state.

The goal on Wednesday is to report the number of sheltered and unsheltered people in a 24-hour period.

Last January, New Hampshire reported 2,158 homeless individuals across the state. Of that number, 1,370 were sheltered, 262 were unsheltered, and 526 people were temporarily residing with family or friends. The total of 2,210 includes 393 families.

Residents of a neighborhood in Exeter have taken their fight to block a homeless assistance center from relocating into the area to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The Portsmouth Herald reports residents along Exeter Farms Road and Hunter Place say that property values of their homes would diminish and their safety would be jeopardized if the Seacoast Family Promise facility moved into their neighborhood.

The Bureau of Homeless and Housing Services in New Hampshire's Health Department is holding a count to identify the number of homeless people within a 24-hour period.

The count on Wednesday is a combined effort between three local groups that work with the homeless in Nashua, Manchester and elsewhere and coordinate with the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness.

New Hampshire is getting more than $6.6 million in grants to support 68 homeless housing and service programs in the state.

The U.S. Housing and Urban Development grants cover street outreach, client assessment, and direct housing assistance.

The funding also will allow local providers to continue offering permanent and transitional housing to homeless people, as well as job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care.

A recent report shows that the overall population is down, but the problem persists and has even increased among certain groups including veterans. Now, with diverse efforts across the state to help the homeless, there is active discussion, and some disagreement, within communities about the best approach.

The nonprofit Seacoast Family Promise had hoped to provide training, medical and social services at a new day center in an Exeter neighborhood. But after two months of back and forth, the town’s Zoning Board of Adjustment voted the proposal down Tuesday night.

Although the nonprofit says all guests would have passed criminal background and illegal drug tests, neighbors continued to worry the center would reduce property values and impact neighborhood safety.

A new report paints a complex picture, including that the number of un-sheltered homeless has jumped by twenty percent over the past year. We’ll look once again at this stubborn problem and ongoing efforts to address it.

Several Granite State communities are grappling with how best to deal with this population. Issues include their use of public property, where and how they can ask for money, the right approaches to truly help these individuals. There’s been lots of debate and even lawsuits filed, including accusations that some recent actions are band-aids to a much larger problem. Today we'll look at these challenges.

The Homeless Center for Strafford County provides seasonal overnight shelter to single women and families. Almost half the people staying in the shelter are children – nearly all under five years old. Susan Ford directs the shelter and understands her clients’ first-hand.

Last year, the number of homeless U.S. veterans on a given night dropped 12 percent from the year before. But tens of thousands were still on the streets, and more could be joining them as troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama has vowed to end veterans' homelessness by 2015.

Homeless No More

James Brown left the Army in 1979. And for most of the next 32 years, he lived on the streets in and around Los Angeles. You might have seen him: the dirty, disheveled guy trying to keep warm in a cardboard box.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services says that homelessness has dropped by 3 percent since last year.

The numbers are from an annual one-day count on January 25th that targeted welfare offices, homeless shelters, soup kitchens and other organizations. According to Maureen Ryan of the Bureau of Homeless and Housing Services, it’s the first time in a decade that homelessness has fallen in New Hampshire.

If you don’t like the thought of taxpayer money financing sports stadiums, you’ll like this story out of Florida. An obscure law passed 23-years ago says that professional sports facilities built with the help of government funds must serve as homeless shelters on the nights when no events are taking place. Florida lawmakers are now attempting to use this statute to recoup huge sums of money. Is this a Hail Mary?